What they are (and the name change)
Distilled Emotions are crafting consumables you combine to anoint an amulet, granting it one notable passive from the skill tree for free. They were renamed Liquid Emotions in patch 0.3 and the system was reworked again in 0.5 — you'll see both names in the community, but they're the same thing.
They drop from Delirium— explore an Atlas area covered in Delirium Fog and you're rewarded with emotions on completion. Higher Delirious % means more and rarer emotions; the rarest tiers come from Delirium bosses.
The emotion ladder
There are ten emotions on a single reforge ladder. At the Reforging Bench, 3 of one emotion become 1 of the next rung up— so 3 Ire → 1 Guilt, 3 Guilt → 1 Greed, 3 Greed → 1 Paranoia, all the way to Suffering. That's how you turn a pile of cheap commons into the rarer emotions a recipe needs.
Listed lowest-to-highest. Even rarer "Potent" variants exist (from the harder Delirium content) for the strongest anoints; the ten above cover almost every recipe.
Two things emotions are used for
Distilled Emotions aren't only for amulets — each one has two jobs:
- Instil an amulet — combine three (in order) to anoint a notable passive, as covered below.
- Roll a Waystone — applied to a map, an emotion adds a reward modifier. Greed adds increased item Rarity; three Distilled Paranoia add ~36% more Rare monsters (the bulk of your currency drops). Save your rarer emotions for your best maps.
How to anoint in 0.5
In 0.5 anointing is no longer a right-click in your inventory — it moved to a dedicated instilling station. You unlock it through the Delirium questline (reach The Withered Willow and clear the related encounters). Then:
- Place a non-corrupted amulet in the station.
- Add three emotions in the exact order the notable requires.
- Instil — the amulet gains that notable passive.
To find any notable's recipe, open the passive tree and hold Alt while hovering a notable — the tooltip shows the three emotions and their order. That in-game tooltip is always the source of truth.
Useful anoint recipes
A starter set of popular notables and their combos. Order is top-to-bottom as listed.
Defence & sustain
Hard to Kill
Reduced damage while on low life
Resilient Soul
Increased maximum Life
Unbreaking
Armour & block recovery
Feel no Pain
Less damage taken over time
Full Recovery
Increased recovery rate
Infused Flesh
Elemental ailment defence
Damage & crit
Eagle Eye
Increased critical hit chance
Critical Overload
Critical damage bonus
Killer Instinct
Damage vs rares/uniques
Volatile Catalyst
Increased elemental damage
Sharpened Claw
Increased attack damage
Arcane Mixtures
Spell / caster power
Finishing Blows
Damage to low-life enemies
Speed & utility
Freedom of Movement
Movement speed / slows
Insulated Treads
Shock & ground-effect defence
High Alert
Evasion / awareness
Frenetic
Attack & cast speed
Thrill of Battle
Life on kill / momentum
Stance Breaker
Stun buildup
Zarokh's Gift — a free jewel socket
New in 0.5One instil is in a class of its own: Zarokh's Gift doesn't add a stat notable — it adds a brand-new jewel socket to your passive tree, just to the left of your ascendancy selection. A whole extra jewel slot is an enormous power spike, which is why it costs three of the rarest Potent emotions:
Potent emotions sit at the very top of the reforge ladder — build them up from stacks of lower emotions (3-to-1 each step) or find them in the hardest Delirium content. Confirm the exact recipe in-game before committing such pricey materials.
Recipes can shift between patches and there's no in-game recipe browser — always confirm the current combo by Alt-hovering the notable in your passive tree before you spend rare emotions. The list above is a hand-picked starter set, not the full catalogue.
Want every recipe, matched to your stash?
Maxroll's Instilling Calculator lets you punch in the emotions you own and instantly see which notables you can anoint — and it factors in the 3-to-1 reforge ladder, so it'll tell you to (say) crush 6 Greed into 2 Paranoia for a recipe. The authoritative, always-current recipe browser.
Open the calculator on MaxrollKeep going
Anointing is one layer of gearing — pair it with a crafted amulet base. Plan that craft, or practise the orbs risk-free in the simulator.
Anoint recipes are patch-dependent — verify in-game or via the calculator above.